Before my departure

Set me down softly

the moment

floats like a feather

the stones

close in their other world

whisper of timelessness

We have walked here

close to the shore,

close in our linking thoughts,

close with companion hands,

closing the loop that will hold us together

across weeks, across coasts,

mind bridge of water and light

clasp of connection

till I come home.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 12, 2016

Cerulean

I am reminded

to let go of all trying,

efforts on my part,

after all, amounting

to nothing more

than obfuscation

Today, as ever, 

some swift patch of blue

fills my vision with the wideness

of effortless being,

the infinite home of cleaving

to omnipresent allness

(Even as my pack rat mind

scurries around, trying to package it

into a Lesson, a plan, a resolution)

Still, the brightness gleams

in so many places,

I can be reminded

again and again.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 11, 2016

Caregiving

In this time of

standing watch,

taking care,

making sure

the quiet order of things

can unfold, unperturbed,

there’s little space

to move things forward —

too many tiny tethers

to accomodate wild leaps

Instead, the measured calm

of giving the attention each thing needs

proceeds in small steps,

none of them remarkable,

none of them leading us forward,

but all of them together,

keeping us steady

in the place we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 10, 2016

Waves

I watched the waves come in steady —

for each three breaking, three more would appear.

At every moment, some were ending,

some were forming,

some would break and some just disappeared

I thought of life, of opportunities

as if each were a wave, as if I had to choose,

as if some waves would bring me

the fulfillment that I hoped for,

while other choices might well disappoint

and then I watched the light across the water,

the brightness of the blues, the constancy

of all the pattern, and I knew

what comes into my life is not beholden

on luck or on the choices that I make

Just as all this sea

is given to my eyes, and all this beach,

so all my days are given me, and all their joy —

There are no misses, no crestfallen choices.

The one who gives me life 

has promised goodness, too,

and gives it constantly

throughout my days.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 9, 2016

Black Lives Matter

Black lives matter.

They matter to every

brilliant, bright-eyed, 

brown-skinned child

and to the world they grace,

for their potential for joy,

for discovery, for fervent love

Black lives matter

to every mother, father, brother,

niece — all of the blood connections,

all the humanity,

all the strength developed

through undeserved oppression,

all the courage to stand together

against colossal odds

And Black lives matter

to the poverty of my whiteness,

to the cruelty of a system

which has given me the harsh role

of oppressor

Black lives matter

and if we whites can free ourselves

from our complicity, 

we, too, will taste

some of the sweetness

we’ve been parched for, all these years

We will learn kindness

in ways we’ve never known,

for kindness only thrives

where it can be unbridled, 

unmeasured, unwithheld,

where it flows freely

to wherever there’s a need,

To wherever there’s a bright child

who needs the world to know

her Black life matters,

(and Barbie, not a model for anything,

is just hard plastic)

One Black life can start to set us free.

Black lives matter to me.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 8, 2016

Seasoned

Days come, in their variety,

Everything living jumps into the rounds —

birth and renewal, harvest and rest

We find ourselves seasoned by seasons,

patina’d, weathered,

rising and falling with readiness

for the arc at hand,

new growth superimposed

on the memory of last year’s cycles,

becoming timeless with the ancient breathing

of what returns again, ever new.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 7, 2016

Offering

I will bow down

in order to take off,

I will dip into the slip stream,

I will rise swiftly, pulled up

by the climbing current

Each day, to do this, I will sacrifice:

I will give up my fear.

I will slip it off my neck, over my head,

I will lay it down. Thus unburdened, 

I will be ready for the updraft,

when it comes. I will stretch my arms wide

to take it in, to revel in the sheer expansiveness

of flight

I will remember:

humility is light and pliant —

it is no pain to carry,

it is so much better

than all those splintered beams,

those sharp shards,

those things I used before

to try to build myself

I bow my head

to receive this blessing,

I serve this truth

in order to be free.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 5, 2016